


Deliver Us

by romanoff



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Loki Wins, Apocalypse, Body Horror, Depression, Drama, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, F/M, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Loki - Freeform, M/M, Manipulative Tony Stark, Master/Slave, Mental Coercion, Psychological Trauma, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Tony Angst, Tony Has Issues, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-16 17:59:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1356775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanoff/pseuds/romanoff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki comes back for revenge. Tony Stark is his captive.</p><p>“Why,” he tries, voice failing “do you want me.” He coughs into the ash.</p><p>“A king needs an advisor. A king needs concubines. A conquering king must learn the ways of the natives or risk expulsion,” he wipes blood from the sceptre with the end of his coat “and I’m rather fond of you, I think. Even in the face of death you use your wit, you charm with your tongue. It reminds me of myself, maybe, one or two millennia ago.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this takes place some time after the Avengers. Loki comes back and gets what he wants: Earth. Also Tony. Tony is not happy about this.
> 
> Tony will not be subservient for the whole story because he is Tony Stark.
> 
> Also, this could be considered Non-con. Technically, Tony knows what he is doing and does it with purpose so I've tagged dub-con but still be on the safe side.
> 
> So I did upload the second chapter but I thought it was so deeply dissatisfying that I'm going to re-write parts, embellish it and upload maybe tomorrow or the day after. Sorry!

Tony stumbles through the remains of what was once his city.

There is ash. It coats his suit, it coats the ground, the shops and buildings. It floats, gently down from the sky like hell’s first snow.

In front of him stands a god. Cloaked in green, black leather, and gold. He holds a sceptre, it’s point glowing blue.

And Tony knows that he is beaten.

The remains of what was once a shining example of Earth’s achievements, a beacon of hope for your weak and huddled masses, reduced to broken buildings and death. 

Population: 2

The Iron Man and the God.

There must be other survivors, of course. Other people who survived Loki’s onslaught. The fire that reigned down from the sky.

He thinks of Pepper. He thinks of Steve. Of Rhodey. Natasha and Clint. Thor. Surely one must still live. Surely one can now try and succeed where Tony has failed.

Because he is going to die, now. That much he knows is sure.

“Take off the suit. I would have you accept defeat in your human form.”

He has no protest and it opens up, slides from his body, leaves only his under-suit as protection from the wrathful god.

He steps, barefoot, onto glass and ash. He can ignore the pain, everything is secondary.

“Kneel, now.”

So Tony complies.

Loki treads closer, the debris cracking under leather boots. He raises Tony’s chin with the tip of sceptre, he wants to look into his eyes as he gloats.

“Oh… this is so… _sweet,”_ he smiles, manic, cocks his head “so long, Iron Man, have I dreamed of having you on your knees. Does this please you?” He gestures with one arm “Does this destruction make your heart swell like it does mine? Knowing that your city lies dead beneath your feet? And that after all, after everything, I won?”

Tony grimaces “It would please me,” he starts “if you would kill me quickly.”

“You’re in no position to ask of favours.”

Tony rolls his eyes, winces “I’m dying, Loki. Bleeding out.” He gestures to a gash on his stomach, claws that rake from deep in his back round to his belly “you can kill me now, or I’ll die anyway.”

For a moment the god appears waylaid, then he starts and says “How?”

“Your _dog,_ ” Tony snarls, and looks away, shifts his eyes down “the one you let loose in my tower.”

Loki laughs “You are brave, then. Fenrir is not so much a dog as a wolf. Ferocious. Strength of one hundred men.”

“I know that.” And then he looks down, really looks down, moves his entire head to look at the ground. Loki chuckles.

“The beast? I take it that he has fallen?”

Tony nods.

“A pity I was not there to watch.”

“Seems like you were busy elsewhere, really.”

Loki tilts Tony’s head back up, pushes it back with the tip of his sceptre, bares his neck.

“It does _amuse_ me so,” his lips curls over his teeth “that you are still able to find such _comedy_ in this situation.”

He’s looking at Tony with a fascination, it’s the look of an obsessive. His pupils are blown, adrenaline, or maybe lust. Tony doesn’t really care because this angle is making the gash in his side throb angrily despite the morphine he pushed into himself.

Loki trails a finger to wear the material of the under suit is ripped and his fingers come tinged with blood. Tony gasps at the sudden pain, he body slumping on its on accord. His hand moves automatically to press against his side as he breathes heavily with blood.

“Interesting,” Loki says, then sighs “that’s going to take some work. Fenrir’s claws are tinged in poison. If the blood loss doesn’t kill you that will.”

“Then _why don’t you hurry up and_ end me.” Tony grits out, his body huffing with the pain, sweat beading down his forehead.

“I don’t want to kill you. I’ve changed my mind. I’d rather like to keep you.” He steps back, considers Tony.

“Keep me _for what?”_ Every word is a struggle, and he can’t believe this is happening.

Loki just shrugs. 

“This world is strange. Perhaps an advisor,” then his eyes rake over Tony’s sweating, writhing form and he grins, malignant and feral “or maybe a thrall. Have you serve me naked on bended knee. Pour my wine. Or both.” He smiles.

“No. No, just kill me,” Tony can no longer support his weight and he falls, lies on his un-wounded side in the dust. Maybe if he can stall he’ll die before Loki takes him “I won’t, I won’t _ever_ serve you.”

“A challenge, then. A pet, or toy. Something to entertain me in between times. I am anything if not patient, and we have forever.” He softly drags the tip of the sceptre along his side and Tony whines. He continues further, traces his hip, his ass.

_It’s okay_ Tony thinks _I’m slipping now. I’ll be gone soon._

His blood is intermingling with the perfect white ash.

“No, Stark. You do not get to _die_ without my blessing. From this point until the end of your life, you will do _nothing_ without my permission.”

Tony let’s his eyes slip shut. _Let me die now. Let me die._

“I need to establish the new world order. Perhaps, once you are healed, you will help me.”

He manages a weak ‘go to hell’ but Loki just chuckles, so happy.

Tony hears blood in his ears and the growl of a wolf.

“Look, Tony, your friend!” 

He assumes he means the wolf. He feels it snuffle at his neck, his side, it’s mouth wide enough to take his head in it’s jaw and _snap._ He tenses, because he wants to die, just not like this.

But then it moves away to sit at it’s master’s feet.

“Why,” he tries, voice failing “do you want me.” He coughs into the ash.

“A king needs an advisor. A king needs concubines. A conquering king must learn the ways of the natives or risk expulsion,” he wipes blood from the sceptre with the end of his coat “and I’m rather fond of you, I think. Even in the face of death you use your wit, you charm with your tongue. It reminds me of myself, maybe, one or two millennia ago.”

Tony can’t hold on anymore, he thinks this is it. Maybe if he dies now, quickly, quietly, a final middle finger to this god, he will be forgiven in whatever comes next.

He thinks. These are his last moments. What will he take with him?

A flash of red on a white pillow, freckles. Blue, polished to a shine, carefully tended. Gunmetal and leather, a metallic chirp. Lingerie and alcohol. Red and gold. Arrows and knives. A hammer. The feel of glass beneath a palm and ice on the tongue. Blue eyes, brown eyes, green eyes. He goes back further, forgives his father in his final moments, and recollects the feel of his mother’s hand on his brow. He sends a silent prayer to her god. 

This is it, now, his breaths are shallow, his eyes are closed. The last sight he will ever remember seeing is his home, rising so high into the sky, and his final words will be goodbye.

 

* * *

Until he awakes.

_No._

He thinks he may be lying down but there is no way to tell. His head rolls round, he can’t stop the spinning. He may be on a bed, he _assumes_ he’s on a bed, and he tries to catalogue everything.

On his side, under-suit stripped to the waist, red silk underneath his arm. A fire in a grate. Stone walls. It’s hot. Too hot. He can’t. Think.

He whines, tries to roll, but he’s stopped by the shocking, _unbelievable_ pain in his side. 

He throws up, whatever was left in his stomach dribbling out his mouth as he moans. Each retch intensifies the pain, the unbearable, unbeatable pain.

_Kill me_ he tries, there must be someone there, anyone _kill me, please._

He moans louder, pants, _please_. 

Somebody presses a cool cloth to his forehead, wipes. He hears the trickle of water and it swipes again.

He’s breathing, hard. Presses his head into the pillow.

The person tsks, lifts his head up. They wipe the sick from his jaw and around his lax lips then place it gently back down. The surface has changed, it’s more rough, maybe a towel.

Oh, his head hurts so bad. He just wants to die. This pain is unbearable. And something else. He needed to die but he can’t remember why.

He opens his eyes gently again and this time he remembers why he was so desperate for death.

“No,” he tries, he _groans_ “no.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, boy. I’m the only thing stopping your pain.” As if to enunciate the point he drags a wet cloth down his side and Tony tries to scream into the covers.

Loki’s right. It’s not worth it.

His mind is all scrambled, he can’t work out what’s supposed to be happening. Loki won, he won and now Tony is his… his spoils of war? So why is Loki tending to him, he’s king now, he could get anyone to do this. Or he could let him die.

“The infection is in the early stages. If I treat it now you may still be salvageable. There is no one on Midgard capable on helping you except me. Realise this, Stark, I am the reason you are alive.”

He breathes, deep, tries to speak “But… I wanted…. to…. _die.”_

“Well _tough.”_ And Loki actually sounds irritated, as if the idea that Tony does not wish to spend all of eternity on his back for Loki is mildly offensive.

Tony is drooling into the pillow and he doesn’t even care. Let the bastard clean it up if he’s so desperate for him.

He sees the god rubbing a thick paste on his, long, slender fingers. It’s green, it looks horrific, but when he smoothes it onto his side Tony _moans_ because there is no real pleasure that can ever compete with the absence of pain.

Every inch it touches is like ice on a fire, it feels so good, Tony’s brain can’t compute the touch of it on his inflamed skin. He pants, moans again, stretches his back on the covers and doesn’t even spit when he sees how Loki looks at his sweating, writhing body. Doesn’t care that Loki now has him firmly under his thumb.

“What do you say to your king?”

“Thank you. Thank you.” He gasps.

“Thank you what?”

“Thank you, my king.”

He’s rewarded by more paste onto the scars on his belly and he heaves into the covers.

And then Loki’s hand is in front of his lips.

“Lick.”

Tony sucks without thought because he tired, he is aching and because these hands took away his pain, he can almost forget that it’s their fault there was any to begin with. They taste of mint, of greens, of something clear and fresh and he can’t get enough. He moans when it’s taken away.

Loki just smiles.

He’s only vaguely aware of the bandages being wrapped around his torso, of being rolled onto his back and the covers drawn up. Loki smoothes his head into the pillow, tells him that he’s going to sweat the fever out, and stokes the fire, letting it build. 

It’s too hot in the room but he can’t find the voice to complain. Loki tells him to rest and he lets his eyes slip shut.

 

* * *

So life, after that moment, is split into heat and delirium and pain. Loki never returns and he leaves Tony in the windowless, doorless, round stone room with the fire in the grate.

Sometimes, in his derangement, Tony imagines the wolf eating out of his side, he pictures the floor turning into writhing snakes and the walls closing in on him as he whimpers.

Mostly though, he just lies on his back, stares at the ceiling, breathes through the pain. 

He is never hungry. He is never thirsty. He hasn’t felt the need to pass waste since he arrived. And slowly, he feels his body start to repair.

One day, or night, or interminable period in between, he feels strong enough to investigate the curved stone walls.

Another, he sits in bed, and wonders how long it has been, about the world outside, his friends, what Loki has planned for him, why he’s gone to the effort of keeping him alive.

He shudders when he remembers licking his fingers, the way Loki had gazed at his stripped body.

Now, Tony wears only loose fitting cotton pants. They hang too low on his hips. Apart from that, his is naked.

The boredom is killing him slowly. His mind rebels against constant stagnation. 

He devises games, counts every stone in the walls, on the floor, times it by the number of times the fire cracks. 

He spends a lot of his time now sitting in front of the fire, watching it’s never-ending flames. This place is magic and he hates it, hates how it rules his body.

He cannot keep a tally with no way of measuring the days. All he knows is that time has passed.

And so he begins to count.

* * *

 

 

Tony realises that time has passed. He considers the idea that in this room there is no time. He cannot feel himself age.

He holds onto his friends. His memories are all he has left.

He thinks it’s been years.

He wonders what life outside is like now.

 

* * *

 

 

He resumes counting.

 

* * *

 

Life pares down to numbers and the sight of fire in the grate.

 

* * *

And just as Tony’s mind begins to fall down, down, down into a place from which it can never return, Loki appears.

He is unchanged, since he brought him here all those years ago. In his hand he holds his staff, he wears that same green and black leather.

Tony spits.

“You thought you could break me.”

Loki sighs “No. There’s no fun in leaving you here. When you break it’ll be by my hands.”

“How long?” He asks.

Loki pouts, shrugs “A week? Give or take a few.”

Tony reels. No. No, that’s not possible. It’s been… _years._ Centuries. He’s been wasting in here while everyone he loves died of old age or worse.

“How… what kind of _sick game_ are you playing?” Tony pushes himself up the wall using his hand to prop himself, finds his feet for the first time in a long time.

“It’s magic, Stark. It’s what _you_ call magic. Surely you’re aware that you haven’t aged a day?”

“Why?” His voice is hoarse, he doesn’t understand.

“I needed you to heal, fast. Keep you somewhere while I finalised my plans.”

Tony remembers the world outside that has only just fallen.

“It’s my coronation next week.”

“Good for you.”

Loki points his staff at Tony “I have been lenient, so far. From this point on you will watch your tongue.”

“Or what?”

He hits him over the head with the butt of the sceptre. He reels, finds his balance on the wall. He slides to his knees and Loki smashes his back, knocking him to the ground.

He groans on the floor.

“Resistance,” he hisses “will _not_ be tolerated. I am your _king._ I am your _master._ I saved you and your will _worship me_ as your _god._ Do you _understand?”_

“I don’t know. I don’t know what you want from me.” He says from his position on the floor.

“I haven’t been _idle_ in the week you’ve spent lounging around, Stark. I’ve been building an empire. But the nuances of this planet… escape me.”

Tony laughs, snide “You having trouble with the pop-culture references?”

Loki presses a boot against the side of his head, pushes him into the stone floor.

“What part, _exactly,_ of ‘watch you tongue’ do you have trouble understanding?”

Then he’s drawing out chains, crouching down. He captures Tony’s neck in thick metal and pushes each hand into cuffs. A thin chain connects them.

“I trust you understand your position, Stark?” He drags him up by the loose chain connecting his wrists to neck. He kneels, sits back on his heels. He doesn’t speak, because Loki is insane. Everything he does from now on will be on the basis that Loki, the god of mischief, is completely insane.

“I will take you from here, now. For the time being, you are my thrall,” he looks at Tony, looks _down_ at him “that means _slave,_ understand? You’re going to be my message to the people of Midgard. _Everything,_ and I do mean _everything,_ Stark,” a salacious grin and Tony swallows “you do will be in attendance to me. If I decide at any point to kill you, then you will find death willingly. If,  at any point, I tell you to murder, you will _do so willingly._ If I tell you to lick the floor clean _with your tongue_ then you shall do so willingly. If I ever decide to promote you, then, of course, you will do that willingly. Do you understand?”

Tony stares for a while until Loki shakes his chains.

“Why, can I ask, are you so fixed on the idea of _willingness?_ As if you haven’t… _taken,_ my freedom? Or,” he laughs bitterly “did you forget that I asked you to kill me?”

He just slaps Tony’s face in return. Drags him through the doorway that only appears for him.

And then they’re in another room, opulence and comfort, carpet that feels so good on his knees, a wooden desk and soft, soft bed.

None of it is for him, of course.

He wonders where they are, if they’re even still _in_ America. This could be anywhere, there are no windows and only a double door to leave from. 

Loki is staring at him. He bites his tongue, resists the urge to tell him to fuck off.

“I wonder,” Loki hums “what I should have you do first?”

Tony stays, kneeling. In his head, he begins to count.

“So many choices, so many ways to _degrade._ ” He actually giggles.

Tony ignores him.

“My own pet Stark. Beautiful.”

The words send a shiver down his spine and make sweat bead on the small of his back.

“Haven’t you got a planet to run?” He can’t help it, part insolence and another part genuine curiosity.

Loki let’s it slide and waves a hand “There are governments for that.”

“ _So what exactly are you doing?”_

“Earth has bigger problems, Stark. We’re preparing for war.”

“You,” Tony says, dead-pan “you are preparing for war. Not us.”

“There is no _difference_ now, Stark. I own the Earth.”

Tony rolls his eyes. And so he doesn’t see the strike coming.

“You have obviously misinterpreted this relationship,” the god hisses “I am master; you are _slave._ You never, _ever_ roll your eyes at me again or punishment will hurt more than a slap. Understand.”

It’s not a question, it’s a command. Obey and understand.

Tony cannot believe he has fallen this far.

 

* * *

 

 

Tony is in the throne room. It’s all stone, a heavy gold throne at one end, braziers on the walls throwing shadows on the floor.

Loki, it would appear, is very, _very_ angry.

He had refused to allow him to use his back as a footstool, instead questioning him to the whereabouts of his brother.

And so.

“You still _cling_ to your vestiges of pride,” Loki draws himself to his full height “well, _no more._ You brought this upon yourself.”

“You’re insane. You are _insane, oh my god._ What are you _doing?_ Why are you _doing this_ why didn’t you just _kill me—”_

His wrists are above his head, hanging by thin air, yet the manacles refuse to move.

“I told you to _watch your tongue._ When you are better behaved,” Loki grabs his jaw “I may choose to revoke this sentence,” he presses until his mouth falls open “however, until such a time,” and then he’s drawing out a knife from his sleeve “you shall be _silent._ Stick out your tongue.” 

No. He is insane, he is _insane._

_“Stark.”_

He tries to shake his head, to plead, but his jaw is held too tightly.

Loki nods and the door falls open, two men of stone pushing through. They are literally made of stone, their eyes and mouths pits of fire. They grab his arms, break the chain and each one holds an arm behind his back.

“Choose now, Stark. A life without a tongue or one without hands. Your choice,” he smiles “ _freedom.”_

This isn’t happening.

The pressure on his hands increases.

“Loki, please, don’t, just— hold on, stop—”

“Choose, Stark.” His voice is a sing-song.

He shouts in pain as his arms are wrenched further behind his back.

“Please, wait, _my king,_ don’t, hold, on—”

“Break his arm.”

One of the stone men _pull_ and then there’s a crack and he’s screaming.

It’s still held behind his back, he can feel where it’s slowly being crushed. He feels another bone give and _shrieks._

Loki smiles in front of his face “Your tongue, Stark.”

The arm behind his back is twisted, wrenched and pulled from its socket. He’s so close to passing out. He can’t move it anymore, his fingers won’t respond.

“Do the other.”

“No…” a drawn out moan from Tony.

“Give me your tongue and I will fix your arm, Stark.”

He bows his head. Presses his tongue into Loki’s hand. 

“As wide as it can go, Stark. You brought this upon yourself, remember?”

He nods.

Loki slices.

 

* * *

So, that was how Tony learnt Loki was not even in the _realm_ of fucking around. As if burning New York to the ground hadn’t been enough.

He was intent on keeping Tony as his slave.

He’s lost track of the days since his tongue was… removed. He knows that at some point, roughly four days after, it was Loki’s coronation because the camera’s lined up, reporters stood outside and the new high-standing members of Earth’s ruling class were let in.

He wasn’t shocked to see General Ross milling around. Apparently he found a cushy place in the new world order. He tipped his champagne at Tony as he kneeled, drooling, tethered to Loki’s throne by his collar and chain.

He remembers that he’d been the star attraction that night, all the scum of the earth he had once put down laughing at him, taking good looks at the once great Tony Stark, now pet to the Emperor of Midgard. He watched as they all got down on one knee and swore fealty to this man, this god, who had decimated their home and prepared them for a war that was not theirs.

He would call it pathetic but he really wasn’t in any position to talk.

When Loki calls him, he goes. When Loki demands something of him, he kneels. When Loki wanted a foot massage, he went. When Loki is bored, he entertains him.

Days like today. 

He gestures silently to the chess board in front of him and Loki frowns.

“I do not understand.”  

Maybe this was a bad idea. Loki doesn’t like it when he doesn’t understand.

Slowly, he begins to explain the rules, miming, and with frequent reference to a 24 year old chess rule book.

He doesn’t really care how it’s played as long as Loki thinks he is winning.

He’s not allowed to sit on chairs so he kneels by the low table. They begin.

Loki, it appears, chooses to play chess the same way he rules Earth.

He moves his king to the front of his field. Tony shakes his head.

“Why not?” He sounds petulant. 

Tony, obviously, can’t actually speak, so he just shakes his head again.

“Are you _dull_ in the head, Stark? Explain.”

He ducks his head, shakes it again, feels a rising panic. He _can’t,_ he can’t explain, can he, he can’t _talk—_

_“_ I have a theory that you’re making this up as you go along.”

If he wasn’t so scared he would probably laugh at the irony. He starts to drool again. Normally, he can control it by breathing through his mouth, but when he gets nervous _he forgets,_ doesn’t he, and Loki _hates_ it when he’s messy…

“Enough. I tire of this. Rub my back.” 

Relief. This, he can do. 

Loki wears a green cotton drawstring top. Even though he now lives on Earth, he still wears the clothes of an Asgardian. It’s just arrogance.

Tony rubs the oil he keeps for this purpose on his hands, pulls down Loki’s top, smoothes it over his back.

He presses into pale skin, digs at knots. Sometimes he imagines snapping his neck and it makes the whole thing much sweeter.

He adds more oil, digs his thumb into the place where his shoulder blades lie and Loki sighs. He continues this way for a while, smoothing the skin and kneading pressure points.

Loki tells him to stand in front of him, and he goes.

“Remove your pants.”

Tony freezes.

“Stark. I had thought us past this. It is nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Tony eases them over his ass and past his knees.

Loki hums approvingly.

Now, all Tony wears is the collar on his neck. There are manacles on his wrists but they are not connected to a chain. They act by some form of magic (or magnetism) and obey Loki’s command.

The god twirls a finger, signalling for Tony to move.

He turns, slowly, and Loki stops him with a hand on his hip.

“Enough,” he stands “go to your quarters. You shall be kept naked from now on. It pleases me.”

Tony’s spit runs down his neck.

 

* * *

Loki has been gone for a while. He does that, sometimes, his disappears for a few days.

Tony usually just sits on the cushion at the end of Loki’s bed and shuts off.

This time, however, when Loki comes home he’s _angry._ And Tony doesn’t know what to do.

“ _Uprising,_ Stark,” he snarls “an _uprising._ How _dare they.”_  

Tony just watches.

“How dare they, how dare they, how dare they,” he presses his hands against the desk, chest heaving “I AM THEIR KING! I. SHOULD BE. _RESPECTED!”_ He throws a paperweight at Tony “Your _people,”_ he scoffs “are to be _killed._ The human race, it is… _unworthy._ You are all of you beneath us. I should decimate you all, kill every single last drop of Midgardian blood.” he smiles at Tony, feral “And then I’ll make you drink it.”

Tony thinks, no, you won’t because I don’t need to eat or drink since you did whatever you did. Also, drinking would be difficult without a tongue. But obviously he doesn’t mention this. Due to said lack of tongue.

“Crawl here. Make me feel better, Stark.”

Tony doesn’t really know what to do but he crawls anyway.

He pats his lap, tells him to climb up. And Tony’s stomach falls out but he can’t do anything about it and so straddles his lap.

Loki licks his nipples.

Tony’s back arches, and that’s ridiculous, he’s never normally that sensitive, but _oh my god_ it’s like there’s something on his tongue.

He licks again and Tony moans, a garbled thing with no tongue to help. He sucks each little nub, flicks his tongue over them and enunciates with a slap of the ass.

Tony is rocking into him, can’t stop, not really, and his saliva is running down his cheeks.

“Oh, you like that, don’t you boy,” another slap on his ass “I remember, it’s been a long time for you, hasn’t it? You just rock away, boy, it’s okay.”

Tony can’t stop. Something about Loki makes him… insatiable. He’s thrusting, rubbing his cock against Loki’s leather, panting like some kind of animal and he can’t control his spittle, it’s rolling down his neck, pooling in his collar bone, but who cares because _it feel so good_. 

When he comes, he moans, the noise is disgusting, without a tongue he sounds monstrous, but he doesn’t try to keep it in because Loki likes his moans.

“You have made my clothes dirty, boy. Wash them.”

And so he throws a limp Tony off of his lap, strips his shirt and drops it on top of him.

“Quickly, Tony, and be back soon.”

It’s degrading, and humiliating and Tony feels like the dirt on the bottom of someone’s shoe, but at least Loki was distracted.

 

* * *

Today he wears only a golden collar and leather pants.

Loki _likes_ the leather pants.

He’s stands in the corner, removed from the scene, holding wine. He goes only when called and tonight the guest of honour is Victor Von Doom.

He goes whenever he signals. To Doom. This is… the _epitome_ of humiliation. He pours his wine while trying to breathe through his mouth, he refuses to _drool_ in front of this man. He figures Victor just likes to see him subservient.

At one point in the night, he congratulates Loki on his silence and laughs

“What did you do him, I wonder?”

And Loki just smiles, tilts his glass in Tony’s direction “Open your mouth.”

Doom coo’s with pleasure, a delighted sound and Tony goes and stands back in his corner.

They discuss politics, presidents to be killed, men to take their place. Loki promises Doom a prominent place in his court and Reed Richard’s head on a platter. 

In return, Doom nods his head in Tony’s direction.

“If it’s power you want then you should probably turn to your pet.”

“And why is that?”

He gestures again “The reactor in his chest isn’t for decoration. The element inside is from Howard Stark’s original studies of the tesseract. The magic with which you once used to capture minds sits on top of his heart.”

“Impossible.”

“You call it magic, he calls it science. I see both.”

He calls Tony to his side, looks him in the eye “Show me.”

Yes. This is it. He removes it now, hands it Loki, goes back into his corner and then he can slip away, die before Loki notices and then it’ll all be over.

He curls his hand around the blue light in his chest and—

“I wouldn’t do that, Loki. It’ll kill him if he takes it out. Unless you want him dead.”

Loki gives Tony a long look and he can’t decide what it means.

 

* * *

Tony is curled on his cushion. He traces patterns in the floor an allows himself to think.

He wonders if there is any resistance left. Steve, if he is still alive. Clint and Natasha. Where Thor has gone, if he is in Asgard, preparing for war.

Pepper. She can’t be dead.

How long has it been? Time runs together, he sleeps when he is not needed and there are no clocks to measure. He hasn’t been outside since Loki first took him, which by his clock was _years_ ago.

Loki is still establishing his world, though. It can’t have been more than six months now.

He just wants to die. A nice, easy route out of the constant humiliation and pain and degradation. He wonders if he begs nicely, Loki will one day grant his wish.

 

* * *

Tony kneels by Loki’s chair.

“Give me your hands.” He says and Tony feels sweat prickle on the back of his neck.

Is this a punishment? Did he do something wrong? He slowly raises his arm, places his right hand in Loki’s lap.

“Oh no,” Loki tuts “this just won’t do.”

Tony doesn’t understand.

“No pet of mine should have hands this calloused. Like a blacksmiths.”

_Yes,_ he thinks, _I was an engineer once you idiot._

“You have pretty hands, though, underneath it all. Just like the rest of you, really.”

And that’s how Tony ends up straddling Loki’s lap again, this time his cock being milked for all it’s worth.

Tony doesn’t see these sexual favours as anything inclement. Rather, they are his only method of control. Appear willing, feed Loki’s ego, and he is softer with him. Give Loki a good show and he is a more benevolent master. Distract him and it may save someones life. Keeping Loki on the happy side of the emotional spectrum is his job and he will not fail.

 

* * *

He lies, curled, by Loki’s throne.

Today he wears the clothes he is usually given for public appearances: leather pants and a golden collar that fits snugly on his neck.

He’s learnt to nap when not needed. It blocks him from the mortification of being chained like a dog as the people who once licked his ass file through and swear fealty to their king.

Today is different.

Today, the stone guards drag in a familiar face.

Nick Fury has changed since Tony saw him last; the apocalypse has not treated him well. Visibly, he has lost weight. His clothes hang from his frame.

He thinks they might have had him for a while, he bears the marks of torture. They must have been drilling him for information on the resistance. And because Fury’s presence here is proof — there _is_ resistance.  

Other than that, he appears cognitive and he piques Tony’s attention.

He stares at Tony with a mix of pity and horror at how far the mighty have fallen.

Loki places a hand in his hair, gently tugs through the locks. It feels good.

“Oh, my god. You’re his _pet,”_ Fury scoffs “we heard that he had you killed, or tortured, was squeezing you for information you didn’t have. But you’re his _pet,_ my god, you sorry son-of-a-bitch. Jesus, I’m so sorry.” And he does sound it. He sounds so sad.

Tony ducks his head. He knows he’s pathetic but he wonders what’s coming next. He wants to hear something, about what’s going on outside. Does life continue as normal? Are cities being razed to the ground? He looks at Fury from his lowered head, pleads with his eyes.

“She’s dead, Stark, they killed her—” Fury is stopped by a knock to his head and Tony moans, sinks lower, curls onto the floor because now he really does have nothing left.

“Enough. You are charged with the crime of attempted regicide, treason, aiding and abetting a known class 5 candidate with mutiny and murder. How do you plead?”

Fury shrugs, nonchalant “Does it really matter?”

Apparently not, because the sword swings anyway and his head rolls to the floor. 

Loki talks, still looking straight ahead.

“The woman. Who was she?”

Tony shakes his head. Some things are sacred.

 

* * *

And sometime after, Tony bathes Loki’s back in the marble bath. 

The air is humid, hot, steam in Tony’s pores and sweat on his body. He swipes, long and soft, along his master’s back. It’s a simple task and it’s easy for him to switch off.

“Stark.”

Tony can’t help the start he makes, his reverie broken.

“Face me.”

Tony obeys, moves slowly to kneel next to Loki’s head where he lies in the tub. Loki stares at him for long time, Tony feels the back of his neck begin to prickle, and he eventually looks down, doesn’t know if Loki wants the eye contact, if he’s challenging him or this is the pre-cursor to another sexual favour. 

Looking down is always the best option.

“Your eyes, Stark. Why are they so sad?” His tone is hushed.

Tony focuses on the lapping of water, grateful that he is not expected to reply.

“Does it not please you? Serving me?”

If Tony had not long ago sunk into a mindless apathy he might of spat. Loki is regarding him with a look of — not confusion, no — but one of minor irritation and concern. As if it bothers him that Tony does not love to serve him, to be his pet.

“You used to have spirit, Stark. Or maybe that is my fault,” he tilts the ends of his mouth down, shrugs “Admittedly, I can be heavy handed.” He smiles, chuckles into the silence of the stone room with the steam and trickling water. He trails off, then fixes him with another glare.

“Your woman. Fury said she was dead.”

And Tony looks away, he looks down, he can’t talk about this, why would he bring it up, Pepper is his, he can’t _tarnish_ her that way.

“Oh, there there pet, I didn’t mean to upset you. I was simply curious,” he shucks Tony gently under the chin “come, massage my back. Then you can go to bed, early tonight, hmm? You must be tired.”

Tony does his job and doesn’t question Loki’s sudden soft manner. He’s changeable like that.

 

* * *

Tony sits. He blinks. When Loki asks for something, he will bring it. When Loki needs help, he will give it. When Loki strokes his hair, he kneels and rests his head on his knee. It is easy this way, and he is beyond fighting. If there is still a resistance Tony does not think of it. He lets his days swim by in a haze of strokes and simple tasks. He is only vaguely aware that he is not ageing, that he does not need to eat. He doesn’t really care. No one has come for him. He gives himself over entirely to despair and a deep depression.

 

* * *

Until.

Another slap, a crunch. Loki has shattered his cheekbone.

“ _You lied,”_ he hisses “ _you liar!”_

Tony doesn’t know what is bothering the man more, that he lied and Loki believed him or that he betrayed his master. Loki grips his throat, tight, squeezes and presses him against the wall.

“You told me the beast was dead. You _told me,”_ he pulls Tony from the wall and slams him back “that he had fallen, that Fenrir destroyed him. And yet, what do I find. _What do I find!”_ He’s screaming at him, spittle flying into his face and his throws Tony across the room, he lands on the table, papers and other things flying. He winces, rolls onto the floor.

Loki kicks him in the gut. He slams his head repeatedly against the table. He beats him mercilessly. Tony feels ribs snap, his collarbone crack. Bones are breaking, he’s bleeding, his head is on fire and yet fading at the same time, everything a red mass, a blur.

He lies sprawled on the floor as Loki brings his foot down again and again and again, on his legs, his chest and then his face. How easily the natural shape of his body is moulded into something grotesque, a monster. He cannot move with his legs so shattered, only one arm is half usable. His face is numb. He can no longer feel where he thinks his nose may be hanging from his face, where he feels like a cheekbone has slid down his face and where he thinks his head may have caved in. All he can think is _yes, yes, yes_ because now he is going to die. This is it. This is his escape. 

He smiles as he fades away, a twisted thing with broken lips and missing teeth. But he smiles, because this has to be it.

 

* * *

He screams himself awake, a sound of despair.

He had wanted to die. Oh god, he just wanted to die. He sobs for the first time, heaving things that shake his body. And he is in pain. He is in excruciating pain. He body is broken in a thousand places, Loki is furious and he means to let him suffer. He screams and cries and can’t do anything, can only stare up at the ceiling of the room that he’s been placed in. And he would recognise it anywhere, this room, with it’s one continuous wall and fire in the grate. He wonders how long his sentence is, how long Loki will leave him to suffer in this agony. A very real, very visceral fear curls through him then because last time it felt like centuries and he doesn’t think he can last that long in this much pain. His mind will break before that, completely.

He can’t move from where he has been placed on the cold, hard floor in front of the fire. If possible, he may have moved to the bed, but his legs are broken, his arms are broken, his ribs are broken, cruelly, so cruelly, Loki has broken his fingers, he doesn’t remember but it must of happened after he blacked out, Loki must have ground down on in one with the heel of his boot.

He doesn’t want to see his face, so destroyed. At this moment, more than any, he feels so pitiful. He’s beyond wanting to simply die, he wants everything to end. Every moment to cease. He wants Loki to feel the pain he feels, the emptiness so deep inside him. He could do it now, Loki is not watching, he could pull the reactor from his chest. Except he can’t. He screams as he swings his broken arm wildly, flaps it on his chest where it presses on his already broken ribs. He hasn’t got the fine motor control to unscrew the arc, he can’t do it, his fingers are too smashed. He has to suffer.

He looks at the fire in the grate. Maybe. If he could just get close enough, thrust his head into the flames. It would hurt, but the lack of oxygen should kill him reasonably fast. He see’s no reason why not. He just needs to get close enough, gain enough momentum and then he can roll. And he’s trying, he really is, but then there’s a foot on his shoulder and he gasps, oh no, no, no, he’s back to soon, too soon.

“I told you that you cannot die without my _permission_ Stark.”

For the first time in months Tony tries to speak.

“Puh-leash — p- p- puh- _leash_ ‘oey, kung ‘oey, k- k- karrlll mm- mee” he lips are quivering, the words are brusque and stuttered. His jaw is aching and he can barely understand what he’s trying to say but he knows the general meaning. He’s begging for release. For his death.

Loki laughs “I will heal you. We will forget this. It is… cathartic for me to occasionally release my rage. But really, you have told me Banner was still alive instead of leaving me to find out myself,” he tuts, crouches and strokes Tony’s hair “that was frustrating.”

Loki heals his body but a rift has torn in his mind that can never be stitched.

 

* * *

Some weeks later he sits by Loki’s throne. He has his head resting on his knee, Loki is threading his hand thought his hair, stroking his scalp and he lets himself enjoy the small pleasure, no matter how twisted. 

People file through, ordinary people, and they might be asking favours or reporting uprisings Tony doesn’t really care.

Until the doors swing wide and Tony has to blink once, twice, because that is Clint Barton and he is pointing his arrow at Loki’s head.

There’s a collective intake of breath from the crowd and someone screams, they run through the doors. There are no guards to stop Clint, someone has taken them down, but Clint doesn’t seem to get it, that arrow isn’t going to kill Loki, he doesn’t know what he’s doing — 

Loki stands and Tony’s head slips. He falls to the floor, supports himself only by his forearms and looks up.

“Tony?” Clint is shocked, completely “Tony, man? Jesus, what has that sick fuck done to you.” He snarls “I’m going to kill you.”

Loki stares impassively “What exactly are you planning on doing with that, Barton. You can’t really think that it is going to harm me.”

“Shows what you know.” And then he fires.

And Tony is a genius, you see, so he does the math. And he figures that there is roughly a 67% that Clint has genuinely found something that will harm Loki. Roughly another 18% that it will actually kill him. It’s not bad odds, but Tony is desperate for death.

And so he pushes in front, barely feels it pierce through his abdomen just below his rib cage. He staggers back, one step, two, into Loki’s arms and he hears Clint’s scream of rage, of horror, because as far as he’s concerned he just killed his old friend, the man with whom he once achieved amazing things. He wants to tell Clint it’s okay, he wants to say thank you, but he just gurgles.

Loki is lowering him to the ground and, yes, Clint bolts, vaults out the doors but _Loki doesn’t stop him_ he’s brushing Tony’s hair, his brow, shushing him.

“Hush, hush, no need to struggle, shh, oh my boy, you saved me, you foolish boy, it never would have killed me, you need not have gone to such trouble,” he snaps the arrow from his belly and Tony groans “I can’t— ” Loki seems at a loss “I don’t know how to fix this, I can’t.” He presses his hands against the wound.

And that’s good, that’s fine, it’s what he wants. He moves his hand, places it roughly where he thinks Loki’s cheek is because he vision is spinning. He strokes, smiles and Loki is breathing heavily.

“No pet, hush, so good to me, _you saved me,”_ and there’s wonderment in Loki’s voice. Let him think that, let him think Tony died saving him.

 

* * *

His eyes open but he is floating.

Is this death?

A hand, an apple.

“Bite.” A voice says and he does.

 

* * *

Some intermittent time later Tony rolls awake. He does not feel despair although maybe he should. He should feel despair because… he was supposed to die. He was supposed to die and he did not. How curious. Although not particularly unusual. He wonders what Loki did to save him this time.

He feels open, like a loose end. He can’t place his finger on it but as he slowly comes to awareness he can feel Loki’s cold skin behind him. They are on a bed, in that room, with the fire and no doors. Loki strokes his hair and breathes down his neck.

“You’re awake,” he says softly, drags a hand to Tony’s chest and plays with the muscles there. And Tony is 99.9% sure he was not this lean before he died for what he thinks is the fourth or fifth time.

“I was worried, I thought you might—” Loki’s voice gets caught, wobbles just slightly and of course, he thinks Tony willingly died for him, that he gave his life for his king, the ultimate sacrifice “well, I’m just so very happy that you are not dead, you see.”

So, this will be the game from now on. Tony lets his head roll on Loki’s chest, gazes up at him like he is his sun and moon and smiles softly, the same way, once upon a time, he would have looked at Pepper. Tries to remember what that felt like.

“Why did you save me,” Loki whispers, tracing a finger down the line of Tony’s face “I need to know, _why.”_ And his other hand _digs,_ just slightly, into where is lies on Tony newly-toned stomach.

Tony opens his mouth to speak and is astonished to find words fall out. His tongue is there, he can feel it pressed against his teeth, a weight in his mouth and he gasps, amazed.

Loki laughs “I can be kind,” he traces along Tony’s collarbones “but I need to know why you saved me.”

Tony needs to think, fast, quick on his feet, this is crucial, how well can he lie to the god of mischief?

“I- I…” bashful, good, be bashful Tony, play the blushing virgin “I couldn’t let…” he looks into Loki’s eyes “I couldn’t let him take you. You are… you are all I have left.” Loki gasps, coos and Tony turns in his hold so he faces them, those green eyes. This is him, testing the water. And seeing how far he is really willing to take this charade because there will be no turning back now.

He rests his head in the crook of Loki’s neck, sighs “oh Loki” and lets his head be pet, lets a hand trail down his back, down, down, down and he forces himself to relax when it finds he entrance. When a lubed finger slowly pushes in and he fakes a small moan, pushes himself onto Loki. 

How one finger becomes two, three. How his prostate is slowly massaged and he feels himself grow hard. Loki is smiling and so is Tony, this is it, sealing the deal.

Loki pushes him gently onto his front, pulls his ass in the air. It’s a subtle, soft reminder: Tony is still the pet in this relationship. He should act as such. Tony spreads his legs for the god, moans gratuitously as he presses in, as he fucks him. He lets his hands fist into the material of the bed, pants in time with the smooth thrusting, presses back onto Loki’s cock. 

It’s the new world order.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony thought he could control this. That he could wrap chains around this man’s insanity. But you can’t chain something that has no form, that is constantly shifting, unpredictable. And now, he will suffer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this is the second time I've posted the second chapter.
> 
> I hope you enjoy and comments are much loved!

They move into Loki’s bedroom and Tony now occupies the main bed, shares it with Loki. The first time he catches sight of his appearance he finds that he can’t look away because Loki has changed him, and although he would love to complain the vain, narcissistic part in him can’t stop looking.

He is taller, he wasn’t imagining it, he is taller, stronger. He’s lean, muscled, more so than Loki although he’s sure the god is still stronger than him. He’s not quite as tall as the god, either. His skin was always a tan colour but now it shines, almost bronzed. His face is all smooth skin, he doesn’t look younger but he no longer looks old. At least, not his 45 years. Once, Tony would have said he looked photoshopped. His goatee remains fixed on his face, coloured brown with no grey. His hair is thick, curled, falls to the nape of his neck. He is constantly having to brush it from his eyes. And his eyes… once a dark brown now shine golden. Unnatural, unholy. The once fawn irises are now resplendent, the colour of rich metal. He realises that Loki has changed him into his ideal. Loki wants a tall, bronzed, beautiful adonis and so he’s changed Tony to suit his will.

Later, Loki explains to him that he was given one of the apple of the gods. He has been granted eternal life as well as his new appearance. He will spend it by Loki’s side, his right hand man, his partner and pet for all eternity.

Lucky him.

* * *

 

Tony wears the same Asgardian style clothing as Loki now except his is tinged in red instead of green. The first time he walks, by Loki’s side, into the throne room and takes a seat next to him in an equally elaborate chair the tension in the room shifts. The people who, a few weeks ago, laughed at him, spat, mocked his downfall now kneel when they see him, partly in awe of his new face, of his stature, the power that now radiates from him the way it used to, a silent charisma. Also because they wonder silently, between themselves, how he did it, how he went from slave to ruler of the world over-night.

They watch how Loki will confer with Tony before he makes a decision, how easily Tony can smile with the god, laugh, how now he is the only one who can face him down, sparr verbally with him as equals. They don’t know how at night Tony bends himself into every manner of positions, how he squeals as Loki fucks him into the mattress and moans when he sucks the god. They don’t know the price he pays. Not that they would care, if they did.

He whispers in Loki’s ear that Doom is an unnecessary risk. That he is a betrayer and unworthy. The next time Doom arrives for one of his meetings Tony has the acute joy of staring at him from across the table, feet slung on top of it, power radiating from every pore as Loki banishes him to his dungeons awaiting his sentence.

Tony bends himself over that same table, presents himself and groans as Loki fucks into him, still dressed in leather as Tony writhes, naked and moaning, beneath him. In another life, it would have been demeaning but now it’s a sign of control. He got Loki to dispose one of Tony’s greatest opposers and all he had to do was look pretty and play the eager whore.

* * *

 

He draws up plans with his god, he tells him that they need to find the other Avengers. He explains that as long as they are not on his side he will never have peace on Earth. That they are the symbol to all the resistance throughout the world, if he can get them to see then the world will follow.

What he really means is he needs his friends close so he can possibly overthrow Loki and restore order before Loki engages in a war they have no hope of winning. Not that he would tell him that.

Tony hasn’t forgotten what Loki did. That he cut out his tongue. That he killed Fury. Pepper. How he beat him. Humiliated him. Made him rut against him like and animal and serve him. How he took down his home and slaughtered his people. And he realises, with some relish, that Loki is pathetic. That he is so desperate for love he will believe that the man he tortured to insanity is willing to roll over and be fucked up the ass by his captor.

* * *

 

He asks Loki if, maybe, he can go outside. That it’s been so long. He needs to see the air.

Loki smiles and procures one of his old suits. The mark III, but it could be worse. He lets Tony fix it up in his own time and Tony is especially submissive in bed that night, spreads himself on his own fingers and lets his arms and legs be spread wide so Loki can use him, fuck him like it’s all he’s there for.

He meets the Avengers for the first time in what has been exactly one year, four months and 9 days. It is sunny in the field where they stand. Loki will not attack, he will not find them here, Tony has made sure of that. He wears his Asgardian garments, the ones that match Loki’s but for the red trimming. He realises that his friends may not trust him, he has to strike a balance between appeasing Loki and letting them know the truth. Surely they can put two and two together, surely they’ll figure it out.

“Clint told us you were playing pet,” Steve says. He is unchanged, still muscled, tall. He looks healthy. He wears a new uniform, dark navy with a silver star in the centre yet he holds the same shield he used while he and Tony were best friends. The apocalypse, surprisingly, has treated him well.

“He said you intercepted his arrow.” Steve’s voice is hard.

Tony scoffs “You’re an idiot if you think that would have worked. If you really thought that shooting him with an arrow was going to take him down. When has that ever worked? Has the apocalypse made you all stupid?”

“Desperate. It’s made us desperate.”

“Then join the fucking club. Why don’t we trade places?” No, he doesn’t want that. He would never wish his fate upon Steve, upon any of them, no matter how hard they think they have it, no matter how infuriating that may be. He swallows, clenches his jaw “I don’t mean that.”

Tony acknowledges Clint with a nod, then Natasha, and finally Bruce. Thor is not there. He learnt from Loki that he is in Asgard, forbidden from returning or mustering troops to take them down he does not know. He raises his hand in appeasement, implores them with his new golden eyes. He doesn’t talk as much as he used to, he’s grown fond of silence.

“Thanos is coming for us. For this planet,” he looks at each of them “he will kill everyone of us. Simply put, we need a force to attack.”

“He’s coming,” Natasha spits “because your master led him here.” She is skinny, almost, almost, unhealthily so. She wears her usual gear.

Tony remembers a time when they were comrades in arms. When he would have laid down his life to save them, and more importantly, they would have done the same.

“Freedom, Tony,” Steve says, sadly “it’s about freedom. And I’m sorry… I’m sorry he’s done this to you. I’m sorry we didn’t get there in time, that wolf…” Bruce shudders beside him “we could have stopped what he did to you. Because you have no freedom, Tony. Do you. Do you?”

“But I’m happy,” he says “happier then I was before.”

Bruce snorts “Tony, you sound like a brainwashed sycophant. Stop it, try and see past it. He’s conditioned you Tony, I know, I’ve seen it before,” Bruce sounds so sad “he’s tortured you to a point where you don’t know who you are. Stockholm syndrome, he probably isolated you, wouldn’t let you—”

“Shut up, Bruce,” Tony snarls, and he supposes it’s in character but he doesn’t want them to think he really is brainwashed, can’t they see he’s just playing the part? Bruce’s speech cuts a little bit close to the bone “I’m trying to help you. If you’re not going to take it then you’re all idiots. Who cares what happened before, we’re all in the same boat now. Get off your fucking high horse —”

“We’re not the ones on high horses,” Steve interrupts, snorting “have you seen yourself? Look in a mirror Tony, look what he’s done to you, your eyes, your clothes. Do you even remember who you were? He killed your girl, Tony, Pepper’s dead and you’ve crawled into bed with her murderer —”

And then Tony is moving, so fast, he didn’t know he could go like that, and he’s squeezing Steve’s throat, squeezing tight, and the Captain tries to dislodge him but he can’t, Tony’s grip is like a vice. He surprises himself, actually. He does not want Steve dead. He’s just a bit angry. But the mention of Pepper’s name, the suggestion that he’s rolled over and is just letting Loki use him, that he’s forgotten her, stings. Why can’t he see that he’s doing it for them? That he’s living to help them, to pull Loki down from his pedestal.

He looks into Steve’s eyes, pleads silently (he’s gotten good at that) with his golden irises “please,” he is saying “please listen, I’m on your side” and he moves his lips, almost imperceptibly, as he throttles the man he once would have called brother and breaths “Fury’s dead.”

He drops him on the floor, straightens his long coat.

“Sorry. I don’t know my own strength nowadays.”

Steve shakes his head draws him in for a hug, tight, then Natasha nods, a brief movement that says ‘I understand’ .

Tony is not truthful with them. For their own good he tells them only what they need to know. Explains how he is going to avoid war. That Loki is infatuated with him. That he can bring him down, given time. And they trust him, wholly and completely, his loyal subjects.

* * *

 

Loki is in Asgard battling out a peace treaty with his one-time brother, Thor, now King of Asgard. He knows that he is vital if Loki is to wage war on Thanos and win. In the meantime, the ruling of planet Earth falls to him.

He sends messages to the Avenger’s, updates them on the situation. He executes his plan for free arc-power throughout the world. In a snap he makes legal gay marriage and abolishes racism. He liquidates the worlds money and establishes a new currency, one that is used throughout the world but with a different design for each country. He doubles food output using Stark intellicrops, he feeds the developing world. Schools are built, hospitals renovated. Those who protest are put down. Those who are unable to see that future prosperity is within reach do not deserve a place in his paradise.

Apart from that, he lets life continue much as it was before the invasion. Those who accept change are happy. Tony does not delude himself, he understands that many people feel vindicated by the acts. But he does not let it stop him. He has realised that the only way to truly achieve freedom is to be under the power of one man. He can change the world, give Earth its place in the stars.

He will not let Loki destroy what he has built.

He receives a message three months later stating that Loki will be returning that night. Everything he does from this point is critical. He doesn’t know the state of affairs in Asgard but he prays that Thor has rejected Loki’s offer of peace. Without him, they have no hope of ever winning against Thanos and Loki will not be able to start war.

That night he runs a bath. He let’s the water flow until it is spilling over the edges, wetting the stone floor. Lights candles, places them around their chamber and their bathroom. He cloaks their bed in red silk and strips. Tonight, he puts his plan into action.

* * *

 

He caresses each of Loki’s boots as he drags them from his feet. Places feather soft kisses on his soles, up his calves. Slowly drags his pants down, lets them fall and undresses the god slowly, languorously. He looks up at him from behind his perfect, thick lashes. Tony’s eyes always were his best feature.

He first massages Loki’s feet, asks him about his travel, Asgard, tentatively enquires after Thor. Loki is short in his answers yet calm. When Tony tells him he has a bath laid out for him with fresh sheets he sighs, then grins.

“You were always too good to me, pet.” He strokes his cheek.

As Loki sinks into the hot water Tony brings two wine glasses. Places one delicately in Loki’s hand and feels it to the brim. And then he climbs in to the water with his own glass, sips at the red liquid there, opposite the god.

“You’re so beautiful now, pet, did you know,” Loki chuckles, sips from his glass “you’re eyes are spectacular. Everybody responds differently to immortality, but I must say it brings out the best in you,” his eyes rake Tony’s wet, lithe form “I do hope you have something fun planned for tonight.”

Tony raises a leg, drags it softly over Loki’s, fondles his balls with his foot. He doesn’t talk much since he got his tongue back. Doesn’t feel the need now that his actions mean so much more.

“Oh, really now, pet?” Loki gestures with his head, tells him to move closer “you’re always so eager for it.”

Tony swashes over to Loki’s chest, straddles him. Automatically, Loki’s hand moves to his entrance, only to find him already plugged.

“Oh, pet. How long have you been carrying that? How long have you been stuffed and aching.”

Tony whimpers as he draws is out, slowly pushes it back in “I needed you. I missed you.”

“I know, I know, pet, I missed you too,” he sighs, removes the plug and absently fucks Tony with his fingers “Thor is an imbecile. These warrior types,” he tsks “they just don’t have the refinement we have, do they?” He twists his fingers inside him and Tony bucks, gasping.

“He doesn’t trust me. Doesn’t believe me when I say that Thanos needs to be destroyed. Just watch, pet, watch how Thanos destroys Asgard and Thor begs for my help. Just watch, it’ll happen, I know it will. He will attack Asgard, definitely. And Thor will lose, they will all burn, stupid little ants. And we’ll watch, safe and sound. You and me, together. You and me.” He slides his hands down to Tony’s ass and spreads it on his lap, pulls at the cheeks. He noses closer to Tony, his breath hot on his lips “I know, at least, that you’ll never leave me,” and he kisses him, hot and hard, shifting his knee to press against Tony’s hole and lifting him out of the water, cheeks still spread, onto the red silk sheets.

“I think I’m going to make you take my whole fist tonight,” he says casually and Tony can feel his feral grin “I brought a present from Asgard thinking specially of you.”

He presses Tony into the bed, drags up his hips so he presents his stretched hole. Something wet is spread around his rim and he squirms, fists his hands in the sheets.

“This will make you feel magnificent, pet, trust me.” And Tony starts to feel a tingling, a fuzzy warm feel around his hole. He feels the bed shift as Loki presses closer and the feel of his breath on him makes him jump, squeal, he is suddenly so sensitive. Loki gently blows air onto his spread ass and Tony moans, he’s not even faking, the pleasure is exquisite. He pastes more onto his crack, trails the mysterious lotion down to his balls, fondles them.

“You think that breath feels nice? How nice is it going to feel when your ass has swallowed my fist?”

In the midst of pleasure, Tony thinks “How nice is it going to feel when your face has swallowed mine?”

* * *

 

In post-coital bliss Tony lies facing Loki, stretched out, lithe, on the bed. He traces Loki’s features with his finger, fakes wonderment and murmurs “I should talk to Thor.”

Loki snatches at his wrist, hold it tight “What?” he hisses.

“Please, Loki, I only meant that I could maybe convince him to provide us with an army. We fought together, once, in another life.”

“You would have Thor instead of me? You prostrate yourself for him like you do me?”

“No Loki, no my master,” he rolls onto him, their cocks rub tantalisingly and the chests are flush “I would convince him in other ways. I can lie. You always want to see the worst in me, it hurts that you think I would ever value that brute more than you.” Tony pouts and inside his head he smiles.

“No… no, of course. I am sorry, pet. I forget. You’re such a clever boy and perhaps you are right. I shall think on it. But sleep now, we can talk in the morning.”

Tony dreams of pushing Loki off the edge of Stark tower, his tower, he hasn’t seen it in so long, and Loki screams all the way to the bottom.

* * *

 

Two days later Loki corners him in his chamber. Gently, he presses his arms by his head against the wall, kisses him smoothly, deeply and says “You are to go to Asgard.”

Tony almost double takes, he can’t believe it was this easy and he doesn’t need to fake the surprised “Asgard?”

Loki nods, draws back, pours himself wine from the bottle that is a permanent fixture in their room “Do not be afraid pet. Thor would never dare touch you, I am sure. But you were right,” he sips from the glass “He would trust you more than he did me.”

He downs the red liquid, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. There is something feral about him in that moment, something hidden, and Tony feels himself loose control of his well maintained facade of control, just for a second. He remembers that this man is a god, that he is stronger than him and one wrong move could end in, not death, but horrific punishment.

“You will go to Asgard. You will talk to Thor. Make him see the error of his ways, bring him to our side,” he crosses the room, takes a seat in front of the fire and gestures to the seat opposite “you must remember yourself, Tony. They are not like us,” a clenched fist “they do not see the way we do. They may try to tell you things, untrue things, lies and slander about me, about the nature of our relationship. Do not believe them. I want you to stay pure, pet. Pure and mine,” he fixes Tony with that disconcerting stare “I know you will not fail me.”

It’s a statement loaded with threat.

* * *

 

The first moment he has alone with Thor is tense.

He explains to him his plan, what he intends to do. He says that Loki wants a war, that he is insane. That, on no account, must Thor give Loki his army. Asgard, he says, has no need to involve themselves.

If Asgard did come to Earth’s aid then there is a chance of them winning. But not at a price. Not at a loss of life of unprecedented scale. To Loki, the Earth’s people are fodder. But it is Tony’s home, still, and he will not let it fall for the sake of an insane man’s convoluted delusions of grandeur.

Thor nods. But he keeps his eyes on Tony.

“Idunn’s apple. He has fed you Idunn’s apple. You are immortal.”

Tony looks away “Yes.”

“Do you wish for it? Did you ask him, did you beg for your chance as co-ruler of Midgard?” Thor’s voice is a sneer, he believes that Tony has forsaken everything they once fought for, fought for together. It hurts, even now.

“I begged for him to kill me. Sometimes I wish he had. When this is over, when Loki has been thrown down, I’ll find some way to undo this. And then I’ll kill myself. You can never trust someone else to do something that can be done just as well yourself.” He smirks but his eyes are cold.

Thor just nods.

* * *

 

Tony enters the room where Loki stands. He’s turned away, facing the fire. He does not move as Tony falls to one knee, head bowed.

“And?” the god says.

“He will not help.”

There’s a crack, the sound, Tony learns, of marble cracking as Loki’s fist meets with the mantlepiece.

“And why,” he speaks, hisses through clenched teeth “is that?”

Tony stumbles. He had his answer prepared but Loki, the thought of Loki — it occurs to him that this burden is too great for him to carry alone.

“I— he would not, he wouldn’t listen, I tried, I used everything —“

“Everything?” Loki snaps “Everything? Did you forget me, here. Did you crawl into bed with him? Do you come back now to gloat?”

“Gloat? Gloat, Loki, Loki my, my king, I wouldn’t —“

He spins, suddenly, and then his face is inches from Tony’s, he’s crouching and one hand fists into Tony’s hair “Do not lie to me.”

“I, I’m not, please, I only, we can do better, we can, we can,” he’s stuttering, there’s a wave of fear rising through his chest, he remembers what Loki can do when he’s angry, he struggles to keep control of the situation “we can seek an alliance with Thanos, with him, and then, then we can destroy Asgard, we can, we can, please, Loki, master, please.” He cringes away in his hold and Loki releases him, lets him fall the to floor.

He prostrates himself, bows, arms stretched in front of him as Loki turns back to look at the fire. He can hear him breathing heavily through his nose, anger forcing each huff.

“Please, master. Please, forgive me, I failed, I failed, I failed you.” Tony is only half lying, he is just as fearful of Loki’s wrath as he is sure of his love. Loki has always been changeable.

He tenses his body, continues his pleading. He doesn’t move, won’t, not until Loki finally kneels in front of him, raises his chin.

“Punish me,” he whispers “punish me, make it better again. I, you can’t be angry, please master —“ And Loki strokes his hair, looks over his head thoughtfully.

“Perhaps… perhaps you are right, pet. Perhaps an alliance with Thanos is what we should be seeking,” he looks down at him, smiles gently “don’t be sad, pet. You failed me. You are only human. Perhaps I should not have expected so much so soon. You are a clever boy, I know you are.”

Just like that, Loki’s anger has dissipated. And just like that, Thanos is no longer an enemy force, but a potential ally. Again, Tony muses that the world is in the hands of a lunatic.

“That being said, pet, you need some correction.”

And Tony nods into Loki’s lap, shudders “Yes, master.”

“Pain… pain is not enough, I fear,” And his voice sounds sad, it really does “perhaps a period of reflection. To think on what you did.”

“… Master?”

Loki makes to stand, drags himself from Tony’s grip but his pet latches onto the end of his coat “Master, no, no, please, master, not that —“

Loki gently pulls his hand off his coat, raises him with a hand in his hair “Hush pet, I fear you have forgotten me, what we stand for. Some time alone will remind you who you serve and why. Remove your clothes.”

“Master, please,” Tony’s voice is desperate, he won’t go back there, oh god, he’ll do anything and he clutches at Loki’s shoulders “please, oh please, don’t, beat me, beat me, I’ll, anything, I swear, please, not that.”

“Remove your clothes, pet.” He says again, more forcefully but also kind, almost.

Tony’s hands shake as he tries to unlatch leather.

“I— I can’t do it, that means, you can’t let me go —” But Loki simply begins to do it for him while Tony clings to his form.

When he stands naked, hunched, Loki begins to lead him away. A door appears, the door that will lead him to the room with no exit and only a fire in the grate.

He falls to his knees on the stone floor “Please, please, please,” he begins to sob “please, please, please, master, please, not this, please —“

Tony has fears. He fears that as time stretches, one day equal to that of fifty years, he will forget what he is working for, why he kneels, and scrapes, and bows. He fears that a war will wage without him there to control the damage. His worst fear is that Loki will forget him. Or die. Or that he will be trapped here for all eternity, ageless, as his mind wastes away to a shell, he becomes nothing and all that is left to sing of his existence is a man from a once great civilisation who could fly incased in a metal suit.

“A week, I think, will suffice. Shh, pet, do not cry. This is for you,” his voice is soft, he believes what he is saying “think of it as a rest, a holiday. When you return, you will think of nothing but me, nothing. It will be glorious.”

Tony thought he could control this. That he could wrap chains around this man’s insanity. But you can’t chain something that has no form, that is constantly shifting, unpredictable. And now, he will suffer.

When the door fades from existence Tony crawls under the bed.

* * *

 

Tony cannot remember sky. Or air. Or speech. He remembers only stone walls. Fire. A god with green eyes, his master.

He thinks that there may have been something else, but he does not want to remember that. Loki is safe. Remember Loki, and he will be safe, one day.

* * *

 

He forgets his own name.

* * *

 

Sometime after he is released, Tony lies curled at Loki’s feet.

Loki does not trust him as he once did. Tony suspects he discovered something of what happened with Thor, what they discussed. It doesn’t matter, really, the result is that his leash has been greatly shortened.

Loki is keeping him bound by a collar and thin chain. He stays in their chamber. Once, he had the freedom to come and go as he pleased. Not anymore.

At night, he does all he can to convince Loki of his loyalty. Of his devotion. This cannot afford to happen again.

* * *

 

Tony can no longer remember her face.

It occurs to him one day as he lies in a bath. He doesn’t think much on the past, can’t, really, he’s forgotten too much. Roughly seven hundred years spent in the room without a door. Two years with Loki? He can’t be sure. For all he knows now, Loki could have left him in that room for a another ten years and the world could have moved on completely. Currently, in his position, there is no way to check. All he has is the word of a liesmith.

So the thought that he can no longer remember her face does not wound him. In a clinically detached way he realises that the love he once felt has faded. Maybe that’s okay. Time moves on. People change. If she had still been alive and Tony acting of his own free will it might have been expected. But still it shocks him. That he has forgotten so much. That his old life is just that. Old.

Frantically, he clutches his head. Water sloshes and he grips his hair.

Think, think, what else?

His mother had had dark brown hair, he thinks. He can’t remember her eyes. Or her face. Rhodey, they had gone to college. College. He can’t remember what Rhodey was studying. Was he fifteen or seventeen when he first left home? He just doesn’t know. Quick, what else, the mansion, what was the address of the mansion? Why doesn’t he remember? Jarvis, his butler, his first friend he was, he had, okay, never mind, JARVIS, his first AI, he had an English accent, he can’t remember it but he does know it was English.

What is he doing? Why is he here? How did this end up being in his life? He can’t understand, or comprehend, everything moves so fast, the days fall away, twenty-four hours is like the snap of a finger. How did that happen to him. Why.

Loki a voice whispers it was all Loki.

He beats his hands against the side of the tub. This isn’t fair. This isn’t fair, he never wanted this, he wanted death, this isn’t right, it’s not, it’s not fair.

He kicks his legs, moves, filled with an impotent, harsh, rage. He smashes his fists against his thighs and then covers his mouth with his palms, tight, hard, because he can feel it rising, it’s rising and he won’t be able to keep it in, it’s a scream, and it presses against his hands, his clenched teeth, like a drawn out moan. His legs bang against the bottom of the bath, he rocks, rocks and tries to keep it in, can’t, oh god.

He locks his jaw, rolls out of the bath, scrabbles wildly on the tiles and stands himself up, presses hands against the wall and then he’s smashing, fists hitting marble over and over and over and he feels his fingers crack but he doesn’t stop, and then he’s throwing wine across the floor, how did he, the bed sheets, their bedsheets, red silk, always red, and he’s ripping but it’s not enough, it’s just not satisfying, he needs to throw something hard, so he rips Loki’s books from the wall, rips them and tears them, destroy their pages and throws them to the fire, drops them to the floor, howls like an animal as they hit the wall and he needs more, something else.

He finally lets out his scream, and it’s long, and agonised and once he starts he can’t stop, he’s screaming and screaming and screaming.

He continues, throwing chairs to the floor, breaking them to splinters on the walls, pulling ornate drawers from their stands, emptying them of Loki’s clothes. He flings garments behind him wildly, laughs hysterically, madly, and then wrenches the whole chest to the ground. He stamps his feet, treads on the clothes, laughing and screaming, he can’t hear himself, or feel, or talk, he gets lost to the delirious anger, the beautiful rage.

* * *

 

He slowly comes back to himself lying on the bed in a wreck of books and clothes, sheets and marble.

Loki, sponge in hand, wets his brow. His hands are bandaged, but he can tell that Loki is half-way to healing them.

He’s so tired. So, so tired.

“Did you have fun, Pet?” He spits the word.

“Loki,” he tries, but his voice has gone, left him with only a raw pain in his throat, the only sound emanating a rasp.

He had lost control. He had lost control. No loyal pet would ever damage his master’s things like that, no loyal pet would ever feel such rage. He’s given himself away, now.

“Have you quite finished?”

I’m sorry he tries to say. He can’t let Loki win this one, he needs to act, fast.

He begins to cry.

“I,” he rasps “I remembered, I remembered,” he heaves another sob “I remembered them, other things, other people. I couldn’t forget. I just wanted to forget?” He touches Loki’s face with a finger “We’re so happy, aren’t we? We’re happy. I want to stay like that, but these… stupid things kept reminding me and I had to, I had to distract myself.”

Loki’s eyes are suddenly wide, so sad, so pitying “Oh, oh, Pet, you need only have told me,” he smoothes his hand across his hair “you should have said, of course we’re happy, you have made me the happiest man alive,” He words are rushed, almost, likes he needs to say them now before the deadline comes “I understand, I know how… how hard it can be to forget. But we must. We must. It is for the best, yes?” He smiles, eager, down at Tony and he fakes a wobbly, bashful grin, nods.

“If you feel that way again, you must tell me. You must. It won’t do to have you hurt yourself like that again. You love me, I understand, and it’s hard for you to forget and it must worry you that maybe I might find that… inclement. I know, I know I can be changeable. But you must never hide things like that,” he lightly taps Tony’s temple with a finger “anything… bad that goes on up here, hmm? Because…” Loki’s breath falters, slightly, turns to a hush “I do not forget, Pet. I remember your eyes. I remember the sadness there. Before we understood each other. It will not do to have that happen again.”

Equilibrium is restored.

Loki’s fingers trail down Tony’s chest, play with his nipples and skirt around his arc.

“But still… you should be punished,” he chuckles, as if this is a fun game, which for him, Tony supposes, it is.

“You should tidy your mess,” he says offhandedly “but I have a desire to see you plugged for me. Watch as you clean, desperately trying to keep yourself in check,” he strokes down to Tony’s belly “as every shift makes it rub against you,” lower still “and eventually you fall to your knees, beg me to spread you, to give you relief.”

Tony shudders.

* * *

 

“Pet, Tony, we must leave here.”

Loki is harried. Loki is desperate.

“He’s here. They’re here, quickly, dress, we must leave. Wear your suit, come, quickly, quickly!”

Thanos, then. Thanos is here. All of Tony’s plans thrown to the wind, every intention lost, every chance he had to make this world a better place, a greater place, to give it a home in the stars disappeared in the crack of a cannon and the dark light of a new day. Thanos has come and now they’re both going to die.

Tony is… angry. Angry that his plans will never come to fruition. Angry that Loki has led them to this, his own ego forcing Thanos’s hand. But. But there is sense of apathy, or maybe acceptance, that cools the fire in Tony’s heart. This is it, now. Simple. Whatever happens next, by the time the sun rises in the sky Tony will be dead. Whatever happens next will not matter because his mind will be scattered, stopped, the atoms that make his very core disintegrating and turning themselves into something greater. It is beyond his control.

It’s a relief. This is out of his control. It is out of Loki’s. No more manipulative games. No more living in fear. Just death. Quick, easy, simple.

Outside is calm. The long grass sways gently in the night wind.

Crickets sing.

Oh Loki, you’re too late.

His master turns, looks him in the eye, kisses him deeply. He knows, then. This is the end.

A figure swoops towards them. Glides, although he is walking. He looks like death, his cheekbones cut out of his face, his eye sunken and gleaming.

“Ebony Maw,” he announce himself “of Thanos’s black order. You are to come with me.”

“Let him stay,” Loki says “let the human stay. He is of no consequence.”

Tony is irritated by the statement, but he’s not going to push it. He wonders if he still has to play the willing slave or if Loki is going to die anyway. And then suddenly, It hurts, slightly. This man. Loki. It hurts how much he cares for him. And how much Tony despises his existence. He realises, with a shock, that he pities him.

After all this time. After everything he did. Tony pities him. A lonely boy. That’s all Loki is. All that power in the hands of a lonely little boy who invaded a planet, made the people worship him, just because he couldn’t find love, or redemption or peace elsewhere.

“No. Thanos orders both of you to his presence.”

He takes a last look at his home. Not Loki’s palace, no, he means the Earth on which he was raised. Smells the night air, feels the ground beneath his feet. Planet Earth, his only home, his planet. He sends prayers to Steve, Clint, Natasha, Bruce and Thor. Wishes he’d been honest with him. Maybe they will mourn him.

If he is successful, if he distracts Thanos, then the world will continue to turn without him. Life will go on. The seasons will change. The invasion of Earth will become a story, then a legend and finally a myth. The world will be rebuilt. He will not be missed.

* * *

 

The pain Tony feels is extraordinary. It is… exquisite.

This was not how it was supposed to go. Tony was supposed to die. And yet again he finds himself at the sadistic whims of a tyrannical dictator.

He can’t. Quite. Think. Around it. But if he could, he’d probably say it’s like a toothache in his brain, times three thousand. It’s burrowing deep inside and he screams.

“Look, look Loki!” the Mad Titan laughs “look how he dances!”

Tony screams in the chains that keep him hanging on the balls of his feet. He can’t do anything else. He screams and screams and screams. It would look like a dance, he thinks, briefly, he keeps jumping on his feet, flinching, trying to curl up on himself, to protect his head, his mind.

The pain eases, for a moment. Stops. He sags in his chains, his feet won’t even support him, they trail on the ground.

Thanos runs a hand down his sweaty flank and he spits.

“I see why you like him, Loki,” he wipes the spittle from his face “he’s… feisty.”

The pain returns.

In between screaming, moaning, begging Thanos to just kill him, he hears Loki.

“Let him go,” he says calmly “there are other things I can give you.”

“No. No, I find this amusing.”

The pain doubles, if that is possible and he can’t, oh god, this is, there is no scale for this pain, no measurement for it.

“Loki,” he rasps “oh please, Loki—” he voice tails into a scream “STOP HIM, STOP IT, PLEASE.”

He pants, falls in his manacles.

“Weapons,” and Loki sounds desperate “I can give you weapons.”

“Boring.”

The pain. The pain. The pain.

“Listen, you’re not listening, weapons that could, that once wiped out an entire Chitauri feet.”

It stops, momentarily.

“An entire?”

* * *

 

His jaw is grabbed by thick, meaty, mauve hand.

It turns his face from side to side, almost expecting. Tony keeps his eyes trained on the face. He will not submit.

“I’ve sent your king away,” Thanos says “he’s to get me those… weapons. You’re to be insurance, you understand. As soon as he gives me my weapons, you’re free to go,” a, cruel, cold grin “the start of a long and prosperous friendship, yes?” He tilts his head and Tony does not break his gaze from where he hangs in his chains.

“… You have spirit. You have spirit,” he repeats “it’s an admirable quality. One I could… respect.” He leans closer, breathes hot breath in Tony’s ear “You could rule Earth. You, instead of him. You could cast him down, he who imprisoned you, avenge your planet,” he draws away “that is what they call you? An Avenger.”

Tony spits. He can’t do much else, bound like he is, hanging on toes arms trapped above his head. But his reaction surprises him. That he is so vehement about Loki’s leadership. All in all, he decides, life under Loki’s thumb is infinitely more enjoyable then that of Thanos’s puppet.

Thanos sighs and when the pain starts Tony wails and bucks and tries to move his hands, wants to rip the pain out of his head but can’t and it’s so bad it’s insanity inducing.

* * *

 

“Your god takes his time.”

Agony. The indescribable pain inside of his brain.

“Perhaps he has forgotten you, hmm? Perhaps he has fled, hidden in some far end of the universe,” he pauses “perhaps you would like to rethink my offer.”

Tony is far gone but he’s not as doomed to betray his entire planet. His species. His home. Loki.

In between the pain, Tony laughs, the shrieks, laughs, shrieks, thinks of the Avengers, briefly, his father, Jarvis, Loki, Loki, Loki the only man who could save him from this perpetual agony.

* * *

 

Thanos will get bored eventually, Tony tells himself.

Eventually. And then he will leave Tony to hang here until he wastes to nothing or Loki comes to save him.

When he’s not being tortured, Tony dreams.

He dreams of being curled at a man’s feet by the fire. Warm. A hand in his hair. Hot water streaming over his skin. Black and white, routine. Safe.

He awakes from those dreams as peaceful as he can be, considering.

* * *

 

“No, no, no, no, no—”

The pain that cracks down his head, makes him throw it back, howl and kick. He can’t, he won’t, cannot give in, he is better than that, he has not overcome everything to give up now, can’t and won’t.

“Your king,” Thanos spits “your master has yet to appear. How long am I to wait, pet, hmm?” He grabs Tony’s jaw. Crushes it beneath his palm.

He moans.

“What, do you think, will give him… incentive? Perhaps I should cut off your feet and send them to him? Tell me pet what should I do?”

Tony can’t answer. He’s come full circle.

* * *

 

Time passes as Tony remains chained on the slab of rock that hangs in space, defying all the laws of physics, as stars move silently in the distance and Earth turns somewhere far away.

He hasn’t been touched in a long time but the pain remains. It follows him always. His jaw hangs, unable to close, from when Thanos crushed it in his palm. Other parts of him, too. He can no longer stand after he got halfway to his threat of removing Tony’s feet, instead stamping on them until the bones broke.

Pride, if he ever had any, has gone. He is insignificant. He hangs in an infinite space and waits for Loki to save him. To please, please, save him. He can’t bear this anymore. There is no release of death and he can feel himself going insane.

* * *

 

Oh please, Loki. Please.

He wonders if maybe he misjudged, and Loki did not love him as much as he thought. That he’s run away, saved his own skin, left him to rot.

It scares him.

* * *

 

Thanos hurts, he hurts and Tony doesn’t he won’t he doesn’t know.

Everything changes, everything changes he needs help, someone help him help him he hangs here and nobody helps him.

Loki would, once. Loki. He loves him. He does. He does. He does. He does. He does he does he doeshedoeshedoeshedoeshdoes.

He plays games. Games, he plays games, they stop pain and something else something boredom they stop boredom.

He thinks about Loki a lot.

He was cruel, he was cruel, he told Loki he loved him when he didn’t and now he loves Loki but Loki won’t love him back that’s fair, maybe, maybe.

_Loki invaded our planet._

No, no, no, that’s, that doesn’t matter, Loki can help, Loki could stop the pain, probably, or get him out.

_Don’t be an idiot, Loki’s insane. We’re insane the voice adds._

"No, not listening, shut up, nobody even asked you."

_You don’t need to, I’ll listen anyway._

"Don’t want you to, go away. Go away."

_God, we’re pathetic now._

“I want Loki.”

_Jesus F. Christ do you ever think of anything else?_

“Yes,” he says defensively “I have time on my hands. I think about a lot, okay?”

The words are garble through a jaw that has healed crooked but it never occurs to him that he’s talking only to the emptiness of space.

He continues this way for a while.

* * *

 

_Thanos is coming._

No.

_Prepare yourself, okay?_

No. No. Do not want.

His screams tear the air anyway. Nobody listens to him anymore.

* * *

 

“I got… nine, nine lives… cat’s eyes, using everyone of them and, duh duh wild —”

_Running. Running wild. It goes, ‘nine lives, cat’s eyes, using everyone of them and running wild._

“Oh, thank you.”

_Your welcome._

“Cause I’m, na na na na na, na na na na, cause’ I’m back in black, cause’ I’m back in black, yeah, do do doo do do doo do do doo —”

* * *

 

Stop crying.

“But… but I can’t.”

_Yes, you can. You’re crying and talking to yourself like a big baby._

“I c- c- can’t h-help it.”

_Don’t be pathetic._

* * *

 

“Do you think they miss us?”

_Who._

“You know who. Them. Steve, maybe. Or Clint. Bruce. Maybe even Natasha. Do you think they get sad when they think of us?”

A beat.

_I’m sure they do._

 

* * *

 

Tony measures time by the rotation of a moon that circles their rock. Or he tries.

* * *

 

Tony’s head hangs low. His body is slumped. He prays for death.

Instead, he gets a tall figure, cloaked in green and black. On his head, a golden helmet and curved horns. In his hand, a sceptre, the tip blue.

Loki the voice hisses.

“Loki.” Tony cries “Loki, Loki, Loki, Loki —”

His name is a mantra, a prayer, Loki came back for him, he did he did, that shows you, that shows you what you know, Loki does love him.

He strains in his chains, tries to reach the god. A hand touches his face.

It’s been so long since someone has touched him like that, touched him so gently, and he weeps, weeps with joy for Loki is here and everything will be okay.

“I came for you, pet, I came, I would not leave you. I could never forget you,” there are tears in his eyes “I gave Thanos what he wanted. I gave him that. For you. We will leave here, now.”

“Loki,” he says “Loki Loki Loki.”

He laughs, bittersweet and wipes his eyes “We will leave this place.” His voice is a reverent whisper, hushed “Together. We will leave together.”

He cuts him from his chains, holds him in his arms as they lie on the ground. Tony’s head is cradled in his lap. He looks at Loki, he is the sun and the stars, his master, the axis on which he world turns. The sky beyond is space. They remain on that rock in space. It’s beautiful, in its own way.

“What did he do to you,” he murmurs “oh, my beautiful boy, what did he do to your face. Your feet, oh, pet, I’m so sorry.”

“Loki.” He says. He raises a hand, let’s it trail down his master’s face “Loki.”

Tony is going to be safe. Loki will take him from here. Everything is going to be okay.

* * *

 

Tony doesn’t recognise the place they live in now. Not that it matters. He will go wherever Loki wants him to be.

He spends most days by the fire. He thinks that Loki knows, Loki knows that it is his favourite place to be. By the fire, kneeling by his master’s side, his hand in his hair.

Bliss.

Tony doesn’t talk anymore. Thanos stole his voice with pain and anguish and torture. He can speak but won’t. It’s easier this way. He doesn’t have to think, just do. His master will sometimes read, or plan or do any manner of things that Tony does not involve himself with. He thinks he might of, once upon a time, that he had plans. He doesn’t care about that anymore. It’s easier to just be.

Sometimes he has nightmares of that rock in space. How he hung there for so long and he wasn’t even sure if Loki would come of if he still loved him. Those nights Loki holds him especially close, wipes his tears and whispers things in his ear. It’s harder to be good on those nights because he gets… urges. He wants to do awful things, to himself, to Loki, and the voice in his head just won’t shut up.

On days when the voice is particularly restless Tony finds himself responding. It’s the only time he talks, now. To tell the voice to shut up. Go away. Leave him alone and let him be happy.

Loki catches him one day, telling the voice to be quiet. Be quiet, because he wants to be good. To stop telling him such bad things. His master had looked sad, so sad, and brought him to bed, fucked him slowly, slowly and lovingly, until he couldn’t remember the voice or what it was trying to tell him.

Other times, Loki must punish him. It’s okay, because once he does he’s never angry with him and they can go back to being happy.

He dreams of other things, as well. A flash of red on a white pillow, freckles. Blue, polished to a shine, carefully tended. Gunmetal and leather, a metallic chirp. Lingerie and alcohol. Red and gold. Arrows and knives. A hammer. The feel of glass beneath a palm and ice on the tongue. Blue eyes, brown eyes, green eyes. Not Loki’s, another’s. But that doesn’t make sense, or matter. Loki is the only person who means anything.

Loki is his sun and stars, his moon and earth. He is the axis on which Tony’s world turns. He works so hard to be the perfect pet, to be the best he can be for his master.

He wants to be happy. Loki, more than anything he has ever felt, makes him happy. Content. Safe. He keeps the monsters at bay. The cruel monsters. Sometimes he will tell him stories of evil, evil people.

One day, he talks of a man.

“He had the world at his feet, pet,” he sighs as he runs fingers through Tony’s hair “the world. This man was a god among men. But he fell. He was taken by evil creatures, wicked creatures, who hurt him, and tried to break him. But he rose again, stronger.”

Tony nods, enraptured.

“He destroyed them and all of their ilk. Burnt them to the ground,” he continues to smooth his hand on Tony’s head “and he became a hero. A… shining, beautiful hero.”

Tony nods, lets his eyes slip closed.

“Are you still listening, pet? He becomes a hero, and then he fights evil throughout the world, the planet Earth. He overcomes every difficulty, every trouble, never stops. And he continues although no one ever thanks him, or loves him, or tells him anything nice at all, really.”

Tony feels a pang of sympathy. That’s a shame. He remembers when he stayed on that rock in space and nobody touched him or was nice.

“And one day, he met a god. And this god, well, they were so similar that this god just new he had to have him. Had to have him because he understood. And he took him to his castle, and…” Loki’s breath falters “… and they lived happily ever after, hmm? Yes, they did. Wasn’t that a nice story, pet?” Loki is warm against his head. The fire roars in the grate.

“Did you like it?”

Tony nods, rubs his face against Loki’s knee. He is so happy. This is is favourite place to be.

Loki takes his hand, inspects it.

“You have such beautiful hands. They’re pet hands, aren’t they? Smooth and clean. No scars, nothing untoward. You stay in your place. By my side, nice and safe.”

Tony wonders if he’ll be allowed to lie on the couch next to Loki. He looks up and he smiles and Tony climbs onto his Master’s lap, rests his head on his shoulder.

Anything that came before, all that will come after, it all belongs to him.

His Master.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any comments just leave them below
> 
> Any questions or whatever find me at grooot.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are GREATLY APPRECIATED and if you have any questions or prompts find me on MY NEW writing blog [romanoff](http://writingromanoff.tumblr.com/)


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